Managed security service providers (MSSPs) are set apart in the breach investigations process by their unique combination of constant monitoring, deep forensic expertise, and regulatory compliance. These are resources many healthcare organizations struggle to maintain in-house, especially as the study ‘Health Care Cybersecurity Challenges and Solutions Under the Climate of COVID-19: Scoping Review’ states that “the health care industry significantly lags behind other industries in terms of cybersecurity and digital literacy is lacking among staff working from home, making it a prominent target”. MSSPs deliver timely breach detection that slashes the ‘dwell time’, the dangerous window in which attackers have undetected access, limiting the extent of data exposure.
Regarding compliance functions specifically, HIPAA requires healthcare entities to report breaches affecting 500 or more individuals within tight deadlines. MSSPs support healthcare providers by accelerating the investigation process and preparing thorough incident reports that satisfy legal and regulatory scrutiny. Their value becomes clear when considering that “the health sector tends to have a time lag between an attack occurring and detection of the breach.” This expertise ensures healthcare organizations meet or exceed reporting obligations.
An MSSP is a specialized third-party provider that offers outsourced cybersecurity management services, monitoring networks, endpoints, and systems around the clock with an expert eye and advanced technology.
This falls within an industry explored in the Sheffield Hallam University paper, “The managed security service (MSS) market is a fast-growing one compared to other security market segments with a compound annual growth rate of 16.6%.” The paper goes on to explain, “They have also estimated that the MSS market will grow from US 12$ billion in 2013 to more than US 22.5$ billion in 2017…The reasons for this rapid expansion in the MSS market are as follows: advancing threats across the globe, major data breaches, the expanding regulatory environment, reducing costs, and improving security capabilities.”
Unlike general Managed Service Providers (MSPs), which generally focus on maintaining IT infrastructure and operations, MSSPs zoom in specifically on the security dimension. This difference matters greatly in sectors like healthcare, where sensitive patient data demands vigilant protection and rapid reaction to even the slightest anomaly.
MSSPs have evolved substantially since their early days, offering simple firewall management. Today, they operate sophisticated Security Operations Centers (SOCs) staffed by cybersecurity analysts who use cutting-edge tools, like security information and event management (SIEM) platforms, endpoint detection and response (EDR) systems, and threat intelligence feeds, to scan vast networks in real time for signs of compromise or suspicious activity.
The HIPAA Breach Notification Rule, fortified under the HITECH Act, requires organizations to notify affected individuals, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR), and sometimes the media, within specified timeframes once a breach is identified. This rule codifies the legal responsibility for transparency and timely communication, stipulating that breaches involving 500 or more individuals must be reported within 60 calendar days of discovery, while smaller breaches are subject to annual reporting.
According to a Public Health Reports journal article, “HITECH addressed many of these perceived deficiencies by … (3) creating a federal breach notification standard; … (6) adding new enforcement provisions and increasing penalties for violations”. The 2013 HIPAA Omnibus Rule “expands the definition of a ‘business associate’ to include all entities that create, receive, maintain, or transmit PHI on behalf of a covered entity, making clear that companies that store PHI on behalf of health care providers and health plans are business associates.”
The journal article goes on to note, “Further, HITECH made clear that business associates are now directly subject to most provisions of the HIPAA Security Rule as well as certain provisions of the Privacy Rule.”
Breaches are no longer a question of if but when for healthcare organizations. This requires a sustained preparedness that many providers struggle to maintain due to resource limitations and harmonizing old and new technologies within their IT ecosystems. The diverse sources of breaches present a challenge, from external cyberattacks exploiting Internet-facing systems to unauthorized internal disclosures stemming from human error or malicious insiders. As one BioData Mining review noted, “Recent studies have highlighted the growing threat of insider attacks in the healthcare industry. These insider threats can compromise patient data and undermine the integrity of data mining efforts”.
This attack surface is compounded by the increasing adoption of complex technologies such as cloud services, Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) devices, and telehealth platforms. In this architecture, “data are collected by wearable devices or other medical equipment and subsequently transmitted to cloud storage”, raising “significant security concerns” because “healthcare data are a valuable target for cybercriminals, and data breaches can have severe consequences for patients, including identity theft and discrimination.”
The difficulty in implementing endpoint and network monitoring across diverse environments complicates early detection and containment of breaches, often leading to prolonged attacker dwell times and exponentially greater data exposure.
MSSPs are equipped with advanced monitoring tools and highly specialized teams who continuously scour network environments for signs of intrusion. Their ability to detect threats early reduces the window of opportunity for attackers, which is pivotal given how stealthy and long-lasting healthcare breaches can be. During a breach, the right MSSP will deploy digital forensics experts who dive deep into system logs, network traffic, and endpoint data to reconstruct the attack narrative, identifying how attackers gained access, what data was compromised, and the pathways used within the healthcare environment. This forensic acumen assists with containment and regulatory reporting required by the Breach Notification Rule.
According to a Health Services Research study, “Hospital data breaches provide a unique opportunity to study how solutions and fixes to information security problems are related to patient outcomes. Subsequent to a breach, organizations must take action to mitigate the failure and improve security. Such actions can be diverse, from adopting new policies and procedures to installing new security technologies.” MSSPs provide established procedures and tools that help healthcare organizations avoid fragmented or incomplete investigations, reducing the risk of aggravating penalties and bolstering response credibility. Their forensic teams often work alongside legal and compliance professionals.
See also: HIPAA Compliant Email: The Definitive Guide (2025 Update)
MSSPs do not replace internal teams but instead extend their capacity with specialized expertise and 24/7 coverage.
MSSPs are often more cost-effective than building equivalent in-house teams because they provide scalable expertise and technology at lower overhead.
During a breach, MSSPs rapidly analyze network traffic and logs, contain the intrusion, and provide evidence for regulatory and legal needs.